Julian Sandsinformation all about Julian Sands

"Leaving Las Vegas" star Julian Sands -- the ex-beau of Jodie Foster -- was
busted for child abuse just hours after arguing with his 13-year-old son Henry
on a car ride home.

The actor, who also starred in "Arachnophobia" and "A Room with a View," spent
the night in a West Hollywood jail after Henry sprang from the car and stood on
a corner howling to passersby that his father had attacked him.

"Julian was driving Henry and his son's friend when an argument erupted in the
car," revealed an insider.

The pair argued about what music to listen to, and at first Julian got his way.
But then Henry began humming off-key and mimicking his dad, disclosed the
insider.

"Henry mocked his father and hummed the wrong tune. That infuriated Julian.

"They started yelling at each other, and when they were two blocks away from
home, Julian told him that maybe it would be better if he got out and walked
the rest of the way.

"Julian felt Henry needed to blow off steam and that a short walk would do the
trick. So Henry hopped out of the car with his friend and Julian took off.

"But the teenager started telling people his dad had beat him up and threatened
him with a golf club."

Standing at the side of the road, Henry "was sobbing and crying," said an
eyewitness. "He was taken to the police station by a bystander."

Julian proclaimed his innocence -- and after sorting through the facts,
authorities let him go. Deputy Niels Gittisarn, of the West Hollywood Sheriff's
Station, told The ENQUIRER:

"After the arresting officer had interviewed all the witnesses to the incident,
he made a decision to release Mr. Sands. There will be no criminal charges
brought against him."

Article from Fangoria

ROMASANTA:
THE WEREWOLF HUNT

Reviewed
by MIKE HODGES

Let it be said
right away that Paco Plaza’s ROMASANTA: THE WEREWOLF
HUNT (which opened this month in Spain) is, in every respect,
light years ahead of the half-dozen films previously produced
by Brian Yuzna and Julio Fernández’s Fantastic
Factory. Indeed, it’s one of the best werewolf movies
ever made. It hits all the right buttons and delivers what
discerning horror/fantasy fans crave: mystery, suspense,
shocks, blood ’n’ guts, tons of Gothic atmosphere
and a pervading sense of dread. This is a tense, edgy, chillingly
macabre tale, graced by passionate and credible performances
from a fine cast of actors. The film packs a real punch,
and the impact is heightened by the knowledge that it’s
based on true events.

Elena Serra and
Alberto Marini’s script is adapted from award-winning
novelist Alfredo Conde’s book ROMASANTA—UNRELIABLE
MEMOIRS OF A WEREWOLF, an apocryphal, first-person account
of the criminal exploits of Manuel Blanco Romasanta, a traveling
tinker-cum-handyman who carried out a string of savage murders
in the forests of the Galician hinterland in the mid-19th
century. He was finally caught and put on trial in 1853.
Incredibly, his claim that he couldn’t be held responsible
for the killings since he suffered from lycanthropy was
sustained by some highly influential “scientists”
of the day, and the case attracted such media coverage both
in Spain and abroad that Queen Isabel II herself intervened
to have the original death sentence revoked. Instead, Romasanta
was condemned to life imprisonment. He died in prison under
circumstances which remain unclear to this day (indeed,
historians haven’t been able to ascertain with certainty
in which prison he was incarcerated), allowing the filmmakers
sufficient license to include their own historically improbable
but dramatically satisfying and moving climax.

Conde’s
tome was written with reference to archival documents from
the actual trial, and the film displays the same respect
for historical authenticity. It’s refreshing to see
a period horror picture which isn’t littered with stupid
retro-technology, anachronistically “hip” one-liners,
Indiana Jones-style heroes or flying-wire martial-arts punchups.
Instead, ROMASANTA is a welcome return to adult, character-driven
storytelling without being in any way pretentious, dull
or ponderously “respectable.” In fact, the film
cleverly interweaves several narrative threads, maintaining
a sense of mystery and menace from the first scene to the
last—all credit to Serra and Marini. Plaza’s canny
adherence to the “leave it to the viewer’s imagination”
approach to horror ensures that the several flashes of stomach-churning
butchery never threaten to upset the carefully evoked atmosphere
of creeping unease. These realistically rendered scenes
of carnage, courtesy of Barcelona FX house DDT, are included
to serve the story rather than pander to the gorehounds.

Star Julian Sands
turns in a solid performance, effectively conveying the
key character traits attributed to the title character—a
cold, vain, cruel and calculating but irresistibly seductive
(literal) ladykiller. Female lead Elsa Pataky gives what
is easily her best performance to date; following her turn
in Fantastic Factory’s BEYOND RE-ANIMATOR, she’s
been rewarded with a role far removed from the teen fodder
and light comedy of her TV and early film roles. Here she
gets to finally prove her mettle, emoting through the whole
range from naive, retiring younger sister through passionately
responsive lover to gutsy, singleminded avenger of her family’s
murder, all without falling into cliché. John Sharian
shines as Antonio, another unfortunate “cursed by lycanthropy,”
and David Gant as criminal pathologist Professor Philips
and Gary Piquer as an attorney are two class acts who bring
dramatic gravitas to their respective roles. Indeed, Gant’s
performance conjures up memories of the great Peter Cushing.

Also noteworthy
is the splendid cinematography by Javier Salmones, which
won the Best Photography award at the recent Malaga Film
Festival. At last, the cinematic potential of the brooding
Galician countryside has been fully exploited on screen,
resulting in wonderfully dramatic and evocative imagery.
The well-judged camerawork and editing combine to make the
real wolves used by the production seem truly savage.

There are just
two personal (and very minor) reservations. The spectacular
wolf-into-man transformation scene, with bubbling membranes
and goo galore, while technically polished, seems a little
out of place (might one suggest it’s more Yuzna than
Plaza?), and the use of silver bullets is more of a Hollywood
embellishment than based on actual folklore. But let’s
not look a gift wolf in the mouth; ROMASANTA is a modern
horror/fantasy classic.

Julian Sands: Shifting Sands

Julian Sands: Shifting Sands

After 20 years in Hollywood,
Julian Sands returns to our screens as Laurence Olivier, no less, in a
drama on the critic Kenneth Tynan, writes Gerard Gilbert

Published: 01 March 2005

Tomorrow night, BBC4 is screening Kenneth Tynan: In Praise of Hardcore,
Chris Durlacher's play about the relationship between the theatre
critic Kenneth Tynan and Sir Laurence Olivier during the formative
years of the National Theatre, and it will showcase a bold piece of
miscasting. The comedian Rob Brydon, the cuckold taxi driver Keith
Barret in BBC2's Marion and Geoff, plays Tynan. Though you
can't blame Brydon for such an audacious escape from Keith Barret, a
character in danger of defining him, the comedian is wrong as the
brilliant, quicksilver, chain-smoking Tynan - too lugubrious and too
stolid. Far more Keith Barret than Ken Tynan, in fact.

Tomorrow night, BBC4 is screening Kenneth Tynan: In Praise of Hardcore,
Chris Durlacher's play about the relationship between the theatre
critic Kenneth Tynan and Sir Laurence Olivier during the formative
years of the National Theatre, and it will showcase a bold piece of
miscasting. The comedian Rob Brydon, the cuckold taxi driver Keith
Barret in BBC2's Marion and Geoff, plays Tynan. Though you
can't blame Brydon for such an audacious escape from Keith Barret, a
character in danger of defining him, the comedian is wrong as the
brilliant, quicksilver, chain-smoking Tynan - too lugubrious and too
stolid. Far more Keith Barret than Ken Tynan, in fact.

Comparisons may be invidious, but the portrayal of Laurence Olivier,
on the other hand, is a small miracle. And what comes as a pleasant
surprise is that the man behind this well-judged portrait of Olivier in
his later years is Julian Sands, an actor missing from British
television for over two decades, presumed lost to Hollywood.

"If one is reported as having set up camp overseas, it's as if one
has made oneself unavailable," says Sands, who went to America in 1987
after the global success of A Room with a View, and who made
his last appearance on British television in 1982. When Sands was
offered the part of Olivier, however, he suggested that he'd make a
better Tynan. "Olivier is such an icon, and I didn't want the
responsibility. Tynan is a largely unknown creature, so one has more
freedom to play him. Also, the age Olivier is in the piece is much
older than I am," says Sands, who is 46. But Durlacher, who wrote and
directed the International Emmy-winning George Orwell: A Life in Pictures, didn't want an older actor playing Olivier. "He talked about Olivier's martial presence... his vigour," says Sands.

Kenneth Tynan: In Praise of Hardcore documents the
machinations during the early years of the National Theatre, with
Tynan's battling credo of "goad, lacerate and raise whirlwinds"
conflicting with Olivier's more cautious and enigmatic administrator.
Their unlikely relationship began on Olivier's appointment, in 1962, as
the National's artistic director. Tynan, a theatre critic of colossal
repute, wrote to Olivier offering his services as literary manager.

"Olivier was dismissive at first. I think it was his wife Joan
Plowright who urged him to reconsider," says Sands. "On Olivier's side,
initially, there was great resentment because Tynan had been unkind
about Vivien Leigh in his reviews. But he had a respect for Tynan's
intellect.

"If Olivier's camp considered Tynan a bit of an Iago, then Olivier
was a Mark Anthony. He was all soldier. He wasn't brainy; he was all
heart and blood. Tynan, in turn, was enamoured of Olivier's majestic
presence, his startling physicality. And, unlike some, he believed him
to be a great artist."

This mutual admiration didn't extend to bisexuality, believes Sands,
although there is a homo-erotic charge in Olivier's scenes with Tynan,
and despite the rumours that Olivier had affairs with Douglas Fairbanks
Jr, Noël Coward (who was, apparently, madly in love with Olivier) and
Danny Kaye. "I'm certain there was no sexual relationship between
them," says Sands. "I'm equally sure that Olivier enjoyed whatever
frisson he could create. It boils down to his desire to dominate, and
one of the quickest ways to dominate, or gain approbation, is to flirt.
Olivier was a great flirt."

Olivier has rarely been portrayed by other actors. He was played in
walk-on parts in a couple of cheesy American TV mini-series about
Marilyn Monroe, while Anthony Higgins played him in 1989, in a soupy
dramatisation of his relationship with Vivien Leigh. In Kenneth Tynan: In Praise of Hardcore,
Julian Sands gives such a clever, minimalist performance that it comes
as a surprise to learn of the depth of his research, watching
interviews with Olivier and talking to those who knew him. "I had a
long lunch at the Garrick with his son Tarquin. A lot of what he said
is actually in his book, My Father Laurence Olivier, but hearing
him say it was extraordinary because he is physically very similar to
his father, and about the same age as the Olivier that I am playing.
His impersonations were extraordinary, but it was more useful to me
when Tarquin was just being himself. The spirit of his father hovered
like King Hamlet's ghost."

Sands describes playing Olivier as "osmosis", of doing the research
and then forgetting about it. Copying mannerisms is a "cul-de-sac", he
says. "If you watch Olivier's interviews, he has this reptilian tongue;
it seems too big for his mouth. My pursuit of that became distracting,
so I let it go. The thrill was finding the right pair of glasses. They
became totemic."

Above all, he didn't want to "impersonate" Olivier. "As soon as you
say that you're playing Olivier, people do their impersonations - all
based on his film of Richard III," he says. "And they all sound like
demented Daleks." In fact, it was being taken to see Olivier in Richard
III at the age of eight, by his mother, a stalwart of the amateur
dramatics society in the Yorkshire village where Sands and his four
brothers grew up, that first inspired his thespian longings. A
scholarship to an arts-friendly school further fostered it. And theatre
remains his first love, although it is in movies - in particular,
European art movies - that the peripatetic Sands has made his home.

He moved to the States in the wake of his dissolving first marriage - to Sarah Sands, now deputy editor of The Daily Telegraph
and a novelist ("I turn up as a juggler in her first book," he says).
He is on record as having described his relationship with her (he was
18 when they met, and they have a 19-year-old-son), as being like the
relationship one has with the postman or milkman. "Neighbourly without
being friendly, is what I was trying to say; you know, you see the
postman or milkman and there is goodwill but there's no real
connection."

Soon after arriving in Hollywood (where he roomed with his friend
John Malkovich and struck up a profitable relationship with the British
director Mike Figgis), he fell in love with and married Evgenia
Citkowitz, daughter of Lady Caroline Blackwood and a former model who
is always referred to as a "Guinness heiress". "It evokes some sort of
19th-century industrial wealth, of millions of pounds," says
Sands."Would that it were so!" They have two daughters and are based in
the West Hollywood hills, although Sands spends every summer here and
is keen to do more British television.

"The gauntlet is down. You can print my phone number. As a
fortysomething actor, you reach a plateau of maturity from which you
can really get stuck in. I'm more enthusiastic and excited about work
than ever. I know now what I'm about."

'Kenneth Tynan: In Praise of Hardcore' is on BBC4 tomorrow at 9pm

Tomorrow night, BBC4 is screening Kenneth Tynan: In Praise of Hardcore,
Chris Durlacher's play about the relationship between the theatre
critic Kenneth Tynan and Sir Laurence Olivier during the formative
years of the National Theatre, and it will showcase a bold piece of
miscasting. The comedian Rob Brydon, the cuckold taxi driver Keith
Barret in BBC2's Marion and Geoff, plays Tynan. Though you
can't blame Brydon for such an audacious escape from Keith Barret, a
character in danger of defining him, the comedian is wrong as the
brilliant, quicksilver, chain-smoking Tynan - too lugubrious and too
stolid. Far more Keith Barret than Ken Tynan, in fact.

Tomorrow night, BBC4 is screening Kenneth Tynan: In Praise of Hardcore,
Chris Durlacher's play about the relationship between the theatre
critic Kenneth Tynan and Sir Laurence Olivier during the formative
years of the National Theatre, and it will showcase a bold piece of
miscasting. The comedian Rob Brydon, the cuckold taxi driver Keith
Barret in BBC2's Marion and Geoff, plays Tynan. Though you
can't blame Brydon for such an audacious escape from Keith Barret, a
character in danger of defining him, the comedian is wrong as the
brilliant, quicksilver, chain-smoking Tynan - too lugubrious and too
stolid. Far more Keith Barret than Ken Tynan, in fact.

Comparisons may be invidious, but the portrayal of Laurence Olivier,
on the other hand, is a small miracle. And what comes as a pleasant
surprise is that the man behind this well-judged portrait of Olivier in
his later years is Julian Sands, an actor missing from British
television for over two decades, presumed lost to Hollywood.

"If one is reported as having set up camp overseas, it's as if one
has made oneself unavailable," says Sands, who went to America in 1987
after the global success of A Room with a View, and who made
his last appearance on British television in 1982. When Sands was
offered the part of Olivier, however, he suggested that he'd make a
better Tynan. "Olivier is such an icon, and I didn't want the
responsibility. Tynan is a largely unknown creature, so one has more
freedom to play him. Also, the age Olivier is in the piece is much
older than I am," says Sands, who is 46. But Durlacher, who wrote and
directed the International Emmy-winning George Orwell: A Life in Pictures, didn't want an older actor playing Olivier. "He talked about Olivier's martial presence... his vigour," says Sands.

Kenneth Tynan: In Praise of Hardcore documents the
machinations during the early years of the National Theatre, with
Tynan's battling credo of "goad, lacerate and raise whirlwinds"
conflicting with Olivier's more cautious and enigmatic administrator.
Their unlikely relationship began on Olivier's appointment, in 1962, as
the National's artistic director. Tynan, a theatre critic of colossal
repute, wrote to Olivier offering his services as literary manager.

"Olivier was dismissive at first. I think it was his wife Joan
Plowright who urged him to reconsider," says Sands. "On Olivier's side,
initially, there was great resentment because Tynan had been unkind
about Vivien Leigh in his reviews. But he had a respect for Tynan's
intellect.

"If Olivier's camp considered Tynan a bit of an Iago, then Olivier
was a Mark Anthony. He was all soldier. He wasn't brainy; he was all
heart and blood. Tynan, in turn, was enamoured of Olivier's majestic
presence, his startling physicality. And, unlike some, he believed him
to be a great artist."

This mutual admiration didn't extend to bisexuality, believes Sands,
although there is a homo-erotic charge in Olivier's scenes with Tynan,
and despite the rumours that Olivier had affairs with Douglas Fairbanks
Jr, Noël Coward (who was, apparently, madly in love with Olivier) and
Danny Kaye. "I'm certain there was no sexual relationship between
them," says Sands. "I'm equally sure that Olivier enjoyed whatever
frisson he could create. It boils down to his desire to dominate, and
one of the quickest ways to dominate, or gain approbation, is to flirt.
Olivier was a great flirt."

Olivier has rarely been portrayed by other actors. He was played in
walk-on parts in a couple of cheesy American TV mini-series about
Marilyn Monroe, while Anthony Higgins played him in 1989, in a soupy
dramatisation of his relationship with Vivien Leigh. In Kenneth Tynan: In Praise of Hardcore,
Julian Sands gives such a clever, minimalist performance that it comes
as a surprise to learn of the depth of his research, watching
interviews with Olivier and talking to those who knew him. "I had a
long lunch at the Garrick with his son Tarquin. A lot of what he said
is actually in his book, My Father Laurence Olivier, but hearing
him say it was extraordinary because he is physically very similar to
his father, and about the same age as the Olivier that I am playing.
His impersonations were extraordinary, but it was more useful to me
when Tarquin was just being himself. The spirit of his father hovered
like King Hamlet's ghost."

Sands describes playing Olivier as "osmosis", of doing the research
and then forgetting about it. Copying mannerisms is a "cul-de-sac", he
says. "If you watch Olivier's interviews, he has this reptilian tongue;
it seems too big for his mouth. My pursuit of that became distracting,
so I let it go. The thrill was finding the right pair of glasses. They
became totemic."

Above all, he didn't want to "impersonate" Olivier. "As soon as you
say that you're playing Olivier, people do their impersonations - all
based on his film of Richard III," he says. "And they all sound like
demented Daleks." In fact, it was being taken to see Olivier in Richard
III at the age of eight, by his mother, a stalwart of the amateur
dramatics society in the Yorkshire village where Sands and his four
brothers grew up, that first inspired his thespian longings. A
scholarship to an arts-friendly school further fostered it. And theatre
remains his first love, although it is in movies - in particular,
European art movies - that the peripatetic Sands has made his home.

He moved to the States in the wake of his dissolving first marriage - to Sarah Sands, now deputy editor of The Daily Telegraph
and a novelist ("I turn up as a juggler in her first book," he says).
He is on record as having described his relationship with her (he was
18 when they met, and they have a 19-year-old-son), as being like the
relationship one has with the postman or milkman. "Neighbourly without
being friendly, is what I was trying to say; you know, you see the
postman or milkman and there is goodwill but there's no real
connection."

Soon after arriving in Hollywood (where he roomed with his friend
John Malkovich and struck up a profitable relationship with the British
director Mike Figgis), he fell in love with and married Evgenia
Citkowitz, daughter of Lady Caroline Blackwood and a former model who
is always referred to as a "Guinness heiress". "It evokes some sort of
19th-century industrial wealth, of millions of pounds," says
Sands."Would that it were so!" They have two daughters and are based in
the West Hollywood hills, although Sands spends every summer here and
is keen to do more British television.

"The gauntlet is down. You can print my phone number. As a
fortysomething actor, you reach a plateau of maturity from which you
can really get stuck in. I'm more enthusiastic and excited about work
than ever. I know now what I'm about."

By DEGEN PENERJulian Sands, an actor, wants to
become the Robin Leach of gardening. Mr. Sands, left, will be the host
of "Jewels in the Garden," a television show featuring the gardens of
celebrities. "It will be very similar to 'Life Styles of the Rich and
Famous,' " said Sandra Birnhak, one of the producers. The pilot is to
be taped this fall. Ivana Trump is engaging in a little name-dropping.
Last Thursday, she was identified simply as Ivana on the list of
committee members for a hospital benefit. "Her company's name is Ivana
Inc., so for marketing purposes she's only using the name Ivana," said
Lisa Calandra, her spokeswoman.

Brian
Blessed is obsessed with climbing the mountain - toomany others
just want to add it to their CV.Cassandra
Jardine reports

BRIAN BLESSED
suddenly leapt to his feet and flung the contents ofhis teacup into
the bushes. "Get out, go away," he boomed, beforestomping off
theatrically. With that, our discussion of the actor'slatest trip to
Everest was over almost before it began. "You have mademe feel awful
about being an adventurer," he bellowed, beforeexpelling me
from his animal sanctuary near Chobham, Surrey.

While making
the doomed cup of tea, he had told me that his threeEverest
attempts helped his credibility as a promoter of animalcharities. He
had also agreed that they fitted in with his career as atheatre
director. Perhaps it had struck him, as we talked, that hewas in danger
of being painted as one of the new breed of Everestclimbers, those
who view its conquest as a way to ascend a social orcareer ladder.

These
"peak-baggers" have become the source of controversy. It isgenerally
accepted by experts that if the world's highest mountainhad not been
clogged by the inexperienced, there might not havebeen a record
death toll of 11 in the disastrous storm of early May.

Woken by
sherpas bearing cups of tea, pampered by guides tellingthem exactly
what to do, the dilettantes are flummoxed whensomething goes
wrong. Litter, mobile telephones, movie cameras,Internet
broadcasts and sleeping bag romances have become afeature of the
world's highest, most exclusive, holiday destination.

In the past
five years, the 29,028-feet summit has become the placeto go for those
seeking a break they can boast about, one that willgive them
dinner-party kudos and add a zing to their CV.

The fashion
began with Dick Bass, a coal, oil and resort tycoon, andFrank Wells, a
senior Disney executive, who went to Everest in thelate Eighties.
Now, every weekend jogger with a monstrous ego,money and spare
time can have a go. Tour companies have sprungup which, with
varying degrees of scruple, will give them thatchance.

'People go
in pursuit of a vain dream. It's notspiritual:
it's ego'

"Everest
is overrun by people seeking a short cut to stardom," reportsPaul Deegan,
who was there during the disastrous storm. Base camphas become a
high-altitude circus where more than 100 aspirantssocialise and
acclimatise while awaiting their chance. For one scantweek in May,
when the impending monsoon stills the wind, Everestis feasible.
Then, team after team files off, and slower climbers canhold back the
rest - with tragic consequences.

So popular has
the easier South Face grown that the trek to basecamp has become
known as the Yellow Brick Road, in recognition ofthe many
wealthy individuals who pay up to £40,000 for theirsummit attempt.
Queues of yaks and sherpas arrive bearing theirchampagne
bottles and designer kit, along with trekkers such as theDuchess of
York, who are not tempted to climb the peak but arequick to spot a
smart holiday destination.

"Some even
bring their cooks," says Matt Dickenson, who filmedBlessed's
attempt on the North Face this year for Monday's Channel4 film, Summit
Fever. "There is no doubt that some see Everest as asocial calling
card. But human beings are not meant to go that high.Even at base
camp you feel apathetic; you wake up gasping for airand you feel
sick. The cooks do not last long."

Among the
objects of derision this year was a Swede who hadbicycled to
Nepal and was being met by his girlfriend for the rideback. The South
African team, half of whose members defected, wasalso the butt
of jokes. Only a telephone call from President Mandelacheered them up.

But far and
away this year's most notable show-off was SandyPittman, a New
York socialite, who wanted to scale the peak, herfriends say,
because she likes to be best at everything. She posed forVogue before
she left and her departure party was attended byBianca Jagger
and Calvin Klein. Accompanied by her espressomachine and
linen table cloths, she entertained visitors whilewaiting for her ascent.

Compared
with some aspirants, Blessed isalmost a realist

She did make it
to the top, though the leader of her party died onthe way down.
Only a few days later, she was holding a cocktail partyin Kathmandu,
which featured margaritas made to her special recipeand a sherpa
band. Having broadcast on NBC and the Internet, andtold Oprah
Winfrey about her adventure, Pittman is writing a bookentitled
Summits of the Soul.

Climbing is now
commonly viewed as a "spiritual" experience.Buddhists
believe that mountain tops are holy places, and NewAgers are
clamouring for the thrills of thin-air hallucinations. BrianBlessed, on a
previous trip, claimed Everest transformed him intosomeone
"very happy, very peaceful", and this time he took with hima scarf from
the Dalai Lama. His aim was to plant it on the top, whilechanting.

"We come
not to conquer you, but to befriend you," he told theimpervious lump
of rock in fruity thespian tones. For Blessed,Everest is a
woman - "sphinx-like, insoluble, beckoning". But GeoffBirtles, editor
of High magazine, is sceptical about the Om-talk:"People go
in pursuit of a vain dream. It's not spiritual: it's ego."

Simon Lowe, of
Himalayan Kingdoms, the company which tookBlessed,
debunks the idea of any enjoyable sensations. "You don'tget a high. It
is not a euphoric realm; it is exhausting and painful."

Bathed in a
golden light, the mountain looks alluring from afar, butits charms are
not apparent to those struggling up in bitter winds.Sunglasses mist
up, oxygen masks obscure the view. At the"snooker-table
sized" summit, as Dickenson describes it, there isonly enough
time to add a little to the debris at the top - a scarf, afamily
photograph or, in the case of Sandy Pittman, a speciallydesigned piece
of jewellery - before making way for the next group.

Blessed is a
borderline case of self-promotion. He seems genuinelyobsessed with
following in the footsteps of his hero, George Mallory,who died
attempting the northern approach in 1924. Despite being59, overweight
and with a bad foot, he has reached 25,000 feet,higher than any
non-sherpa of his age without oxygen.

He went to
prove a point. "If a stupid old pillock like me can get upEverest,
anything is possible," he told me, before his temper got thebetter of him.
His doctors had told him there was no way he wouldmake it to the
top without oxygen cylinders, and they were right.

Some blame
the commercial expeditions fortaking risks
in order to please existing clientsand attract more

Compared with
some aspirants, Blessed is almost a realist. "I havehigh achievers
telling me they want to climb Everest, who have neverbeen climbing
before," says Todd Burleson, who runs Alpine Ascentsof Seattle.
"Some take two steps and decide it's enough."

"People
want to climb Everest who can scarcely get up their ownstaircases,"
adds his friend, actor Julian Sands. Sands' passion forclimbing began
during his childhood in the North of England. Thestar of A Room
With A View, who more recently played a pimp inLeaving Las
Vegas, now lives in Los Angeles, but he dissociateshimself from
the thrill-seekers who treat Everest as the nextchallenge after
the Hollywood Hills.

Sands would
have been on Everest himself this year, in the sameexpedition as
Pittman, but for "providenza". The death of hismother-in-law
and his wife's pregnancy prevented him going, but heintends to try
one day. "The deaths have not put me off, because Itrust those I
climb with," he says.

To him,
mountains are "the greatest cathedrals in the world", but hekeeps his head.
"I climb as a recreation, not because of a void withinor a need to
prove myself. The less good climbers need to get to thetop as evidence
that they can do it. Such mad dogs exist, and youusually find
them curled up and frozen solid. If you take risks, theodds turn
against you."

It is that
crazed desire to get to the top, whatever the conditions, thathas killed so
many. Some blame the commercial expeditions fortaking risks in
order to please existing clients and attract more. "It'sall
money-driven and clients want to be able to say they reached thesummit,"
says Birtles. The commercial expedition leaders see itotherwise:
"People are safer with us than on their own," saysBurleson.
"Had it not been for the commercial expeditions who laidthe ropes and
showed the way, there would have been many moredeaths this year."

Base camp is
regularly visited by helicopterslifting off
those with broken legs, heartattacks and
a good story to tell

Three Indians
who died on the North Face this year showed howfoolish the
unguided can be. Having not planned to go to thesummit, they
set off nine hours too late for an attempt, but decidedthey couldn't
resist. They reached the top at 6.30 pm, allowingthemselves only
half an hour of daylight for the descent, with thetemperature
dropping, the wind rising and their oxygen cylindersnearly empty.
"In thin air, your objectivity goes," says Sands.

Burleson
believes the standard of climber has dropped in the pastfive years
because recent successes have made it sound "like a yaktrail" to
the summit. "With advances in equipment and clothing,understanding
of acclimatisation and time and money to spend onrecreation,
more people feel they can do it," says Sands.

As a result,
the base camp is regularly visited by helicopters liftingoff those with
broken legs, heart attacks and a good story to tell. Ahelicopter has
even managed to rescue an American teenage girl at21,000 feet: a record.

This year's
death toll is shocking. But tour companies are notworried that
business will dry up. "The disasters could be good forbusiness,"
says Dickenson. "So many people have been lucky inrecent years
that Everest was in danger of losing its reputation forbeing a killer mountain."

TV Guide

Here's what's odd about Julian
Sands. You'll be having a perfectly lovely conversation about all
the innocent people he's threatened to exterminate this season in his role as
billionaire villain Vladimir Bierko on Fox's 24
(Mondays at 9 pm/ET), when suddenly the guy starts talking about taking his kids
to the zoo!

What's next? Unleashing laughing gas on CTU?

But it turns out he's making a point about his character. "My children,"
Sands says in his highborn English accent, "often stare the longest at the
creature in the reptile house that's the stillest. Bierko is that snake."

Bierko is indeed the quietest — and most slithery — of menaces. With his
Savile Row suits and Russian oil money, you'd expect to find him nibbling
Caspian caviar, not scheming to gas half of Los Angeles. And therein lies his
dark magic. As Sands puts it, "He's not flamboyant or baroque. He's not Captain
Hook or the Sheriff of Nottingham. He just sits there. That's what makes him
attractive."

Actually, prior to last week's episode, Bierko was just lying there,
unconscious, having been nearly blown to smithereens after Jack Bauer
(Kiefer Sutherland) preemptively exploded Bierko's reserves of
lethal nerve gas. But like all the best 24 bad guys, Bierko's destined
to get badder as Day 5 rolls toward its cataclysmic close. He and Henderson
(Peter Weller) will work together for the greater bad, though
Sands hedges a bit when asked for specific plot details. All he'll say is,
"Henderson's a procurer for Bierko's needs and Bierko's a mechanism to bring
about Henderson's greater aim." And, of course, there was that mega-plot twist,
one that exec producer Evan Katz promised will "knock your
socks off," on April 10. ("Befuddled" and "overwhelmed" President Logan,
apparently we hardly know ya.)

And in a
season that's already had fans' heads spinning over the deaths of key players
like Tony Almeida (Carlos Bernard) and lovable Edgar Stiles
(Louis Lombardi), there's no predicting what sort of endgame
24's producers are concocting. "We tend to let our villains emerge
slowly, but when they show themselves, we keep increasing the stakes," Katz
says. "By this part of the season, Jack's success starts to depend on defeating
them — and that almost always requires face-to-face confrontation."

Sands is eager to oblige. Even as he earned a reputation in acclaimed
heartthrob roles like the free-spirited suitor in Merchant Ivory's A Room
with a View, Sands found himself drawn to the James Bond villains of his
English boyhood. Says Sands, "I remember being enamored of the likes of Oddjob,
or Blofeld from You Only Live Twice, who sat stroking the pussycat on
his lap. They were exotic. And you wanted to grow up to be exactly like
them."

But actually playing a villain has some unexpected side effects. "I've
noticed people hovering a bit anxiously as I peruse the organic grocery section
of my local Trader Joe's," he says. "But once they realize I'm no threat, I
usually get smiles."

Charles Sandy Toronto. The trial of Sandy Charles, a 14-year-old boy who killed a seven year old in rural
Canada and then boiled his flesh in what the lawyers say was an
imitation of a scene from the 1989 release Warlock, has sparked further
debate in Canada about links between screen violence and the effect it
has on children.
The 14 year old has admitted luring the seven year old into the bushes where he stabbed,
bludgeoned and suffocated the child. Charles' lawyers have told the
court that the killing was probably inspired by Julian Sands' character
in Warlock, who drinks the liqueried fat of a child to gain special
powers.

Charles' mother said he had watched Warlock at least 10 times.

The first stories of "flying ointments" were recorded in the early
1400's. In those cases, mention was made only that the witches dreamt
they were flying. Watched all night long, the witches were not seen to
actually leave, but would awake with lurid stories of far away
gatherings.

While the forged "grimoires" produced by the clergy prosecutors
wove lurid tales of the boiled fat of a child as the central ingredient
of the flying potion, the reality is that the concoction was based on
easily available herbs such as aconite, nightshade, belladonna, and
alcohol.

The clergy, eager to so horrify the masses as to remove all
resistance to the abuses of the Inquisition cast all witches as a
threat to the children, just as Hitler would later do to the Jews, and
the present government to the internet. This myth of using a child's
fat for a flying potion has no basis in historical fact, but persists
to this very day, and was used as a story element in the film,
"Warlock".

Of all the folk drugs available to the witches, ergot was the most
powerful, and the most dangerous. In use as a hallucinogen it was
absorbed through the skin, most quickly through the thin tissues of the
female genitals. "Flying ointment" was administered by rubbing it on a
smooth wooden pole such as a broomstick, and then "riding" the pole.More about Sandy Charles....

Sandy Charles, 14, of Saskatoon, SK, Canada stabbed and
smothered a 7 year old boy in La Ronge SK on 1995-JUL-8. He and an 8 year old
accomplice carved 10 to 15 strips of flesh and fat from the body. He took the
body parts home, cooked them, and ate them. Charles was suffering from
bizarre delusions and becoming schizophrenic when he watched the movie
Warlock and its sequel Warlock II at least 10 times. One media
source also quotes The Exorcist. The Warlock series are horror movies
which describe Gothic Satanist rituals and concepts, including
the belief that if a person drinks the liquefied fat of an unbaptised child,
they would gain special powers - in this case, the power to fly. He told the
police "There's a spirit in my room that gave me these thoughts". He
had been contemplating suicide but a voice told him that it might be just as
good to kill someone else. At his trial in 1996-JUN, a psychiatrist testified
that the accused "did not see the victim as human but as an object whose
death was necessary to fulfill his deluded plan". On 1996-AUG-2, he was
found not guilty by reason of insanity. The judge concluded that Sandy
Charles "was suffering from a mental disorder so as to be exempt of
criminal responsibility".

There was no organized Satanic group involved in this murder. Charles was
driven by his own delusions and mental illness, rather than by any religious
belief in Satanism. The source of the child's particular delusions were
based on the "Gothic Satanism" hoax promoted by the movies. That hoax is in
turn based on late Middle Age and Renaissance beliefs which are unrelated to
Satanism and Witchcraft
as they were practiced, then or now.